Module 1: The Study of Economics

1.1 Individual Choice: The Core of Economics

Economics: the study of scarcity and choice.

o Individual choice: decisions by individuals about what to do, which
necessarily involve decisions about what not to do.
An economy is a system for coordinating a societys productive and
consumptive activities.
In a market economy, the decisions of individual producers and consumers
largely determine what, how, and for whom to produce, with little
government involvement in the decisions.
In a command economy, industry is publicly owned and a central authority
makes production and consumption decisions.
Incentives are rewards or punishments that motivate particular choices.
Property rights establish ownership and grant individuals the right to trade
goods and services with each other; create many of the incentives in market
economies.
Marginal analysis is the study of the costs and benefits of doing a little bit
more of an activity versus a little bit less.
o The gain from doing something one more time is called the marginal
benefit.
o The cost of doing something one more time is the marginal cost.

Resources are Scarce

A resource is anything that can be used to produce something else.

The economys resources, sometimes called factors of production, can be
classified into four categories:
o Land refers to all resources that come from nature, such as minerals,
timber and petroleum.
o Labor is the effort of workers.
o Capital refers to manufactured goods used to make other goods and
services.
o Entrepreneurship describes the efforts of entrepreneurs in organizing
resources for production, taking risks to create new enterprises, and
innovating to develop new products and production processes.
A scarce resource is not available in sufficient quantities to satisfy all the
various ways a society wants to use it.

Opportunity Cost: The Real Cost of Something Is What You Must Give
Up to Get It

The real cost of an item is its opportunity cost: what you must give up in
order to get it.

1.2 Microeconomics Versus Macroeconomics

Microeconomics is the study of how people make decisions and how those
decisions interact.
Macroeconomics is concerned with the overall ups and downs in the
economy.
Economic aggregates are economic measures that summarize data across
many different markets.

1.3 Positive Versus Normative Economics

Positive economics is the branch of economic analysis that describes the way
the economy actually works.
o No value judgments are applied.
o Can be tested to determine if it is correct or not.
Normative economics makes prescriptions about the way the economy should
work.
o These involve value judgments of what is right, wrong, or best.

When and Why Economists Disagree

Economists may disagree because they have different values or opinions

Economists may disagree because they use different models or methods to
conduct their analysis
Over time, disputes in economics are resolved by the accumulation of
evidence (but this can sometimes take a long time!)